


He walks in beauty

by hobgoblin123



Category: Coldfire Trilogy - C. S. Friedman
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 12:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1983174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobgoblin123/pseuds/hobgoblin123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, quoting verses of an ancient love poem leads to unexpected results...</p>
            </blockquote>





	He walks in beauty

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own either the Coldfire Trilogy or Lord Byron’s ‘She walks in Beauty like the Night’
> 
> Author's Note: Lately, I've decided to post some of my older stories from ffnet on this site in slightly edited versions. There isn't much of a plot other than an eye-opener for Damien and a bit of fluff on their way to Mount Shaitan. But I’ve always adored the poem, and I think the first verse fits quite well. 
> 
> ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

His eyes locked firmly on a straight back, Damien forced his weary limbs to move, one painful step after the other. Long legs clad in grey worsted marched on tirelessly, and if Tarrant's true feelings hadn’t been given away by the slight tremor passing through his lithe frame every now and then, the warrior knight would have assumed that his companion didn’t give a damn for leading them to their bloody meeting with eternity.

The ascend of the treacherous ravine in addition to twelve strenuous hours on horseback and the horrible death of their animals had taken their toll on the former priest. Panting with exhaustion, he paused for a moment in order to catch his breath and wipe the sweat from eyes burning with fatigue and sorrow alike. Looking up at the night sky alight with innumerable stars, he gauged the time, dreading the result of his calculation. They still had to traverse the pass, a dark cleft looming threateningly ahead of them, and find shelter for the Hunter before the first rays of the rising sun condemned their suicidal mission to a premature end. He hadn’t dragged the damned bastard back from hell just to witness him burning to cinders at this godforsaken place. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Damien squinted and allowed himself a small sigh of relief. Dawn was doubtlessly approaching with rapid strides. But judged by the constellation of the stars, they still had thirty minutes left at the very least until the situation got critical, and Gerald had felt confident that finding an adequate refuge from the lethal sunlight beyond the pass would prove one of the easier tasks of their journey.

After shifting the straps of his pack on his aching shoulders, Vryce got off his butt and grudgingly attacked the slippery stones and large boulders blocking their path on leaden legs. Under normal circumstances, his lack of the catlike grace displayed by the adept would have been somewhat made up for by the very same unflinching determination which had never failed to push him on throughout their toils. It had carried him across Novatlantis, to the realm of the Undying Prince and even to Tarrant's private hell, a place he didn't care to visit ever again. But as taxing as their race against the clock had been so far, his bottomless despair represented the true cause of his waning endurance. He had promised himself to save Gerald from the terrible fate waiting for him, but had failed on a large scale, and now his doomed brother-in-arms was running out of time. Either he would be killed in their attempt to bring down Calesta, or he would die for good when the thirty day deadline set by the Unnamed expired. In either case, he was in for a renewed trip to hell, and picturing his torture at the hands of pure evil cruel beyond mortal reckoning, the warrior knight had to clench his teeth to keep them from clattering.

As during the final hours of their ride into death’s gaping maw, he tried to find some consolation in prayer, offering the Lord his own life in exchange for the salvation of mankind and Tarrant's survival. But his pleads died on his dry lips like the last roses of summer perishing in a chill late autumn night, the last remnants of religious fervour which had once formed an integral part of his self being suffocated in a treacherous quagmire of guilt and remorse.

Trudging on with his last ounce of strength, Damien remembered how steadfast his beliefs had been prior to his encounter with the creature who had once been the Prophet of the Law, how clear the division between good and evil, night and day, the Hunter and himself. The purity of his faith had been undermined by Tarrant’s malevolent presence until black and white had merged into grey, until the initial hatred and abhorrence had been transformed into grudging camaraderie at first and then into a kind of twisted, fire-forged friendship. Losing the very man to the grim reaper he had sworn to kill once was inconceivable notwithstanding their vast differences. But very likely, he would die at the adept’s side the following day and accompany him on the road to perdition, anyway. So worrying about a future without vulking Gerald Tarrant around to drive him up the pole was pretty futile, after all.

To keep himself going and his mind off the dire events to come, Damien finally replaced his fruitless attempts at prayer with the more secular occupation of memorizing bits and pieces of each and every silly ditty or poem he could dredge up from his overwrought mind instead. But after a few minutes, his power of recollection seemed to get stuck in a loop, and he started to mumble the same words again and again.

Of cloudless climes and starry skies, of cloudless climes and starry skies…

The sky was definitely both starry and cloudless, but for the life of him Vryce couldn't recall the corresponding lines. He was reasonably sure that he was quoting a part of an ancient love poem brought to Erna by their Terran ancestors, a veritable treasure of poetry and stories prevailing, safely filed in human brains, when Ian Casca’s sacrifice had robbed them of the colonists’ wondrous technological achievements. But beyond this, his grey matter simply refused to do its duty.

Muttering a vicious curse under his breath, Damien set about utilizing the faces of lovers long lost as a memory aid, but to no avail. Even the reminiscences of his old flame Ciani or the deplorable pilot Rasya who had been killed by an enraged mob were dulled by the pain in his tired bones and the dread of the rather grim future prospects, and their once treasured lineaments were as wan and insubstantial as wraiths dissolving at the first rays of dawn.

Nonetheless, he couldn't help but being plagued by the mind-boggling idea that in a way remembering those blasted lines from a poet who had been dead for untold centuries was of utmost importance for his future. If he somehow survived battling a sadistic Iezu, that is. But try as he might, he couldn’t lay a finger on the reason for his absurd conviction.

Distracted by his pointless reverie, the warrior knight stumbled for the umpteenth time, but was saved from a potentially neck breaking tumble by an icy hand closing around his arm like an iron-wrought vise and steadying him until he had found his balance again. “Tired, Vryce? It’s not far anymore, and you can rest soon.”

Unhinged by the unfamiliar trace of concern in Tarrant's light tenor, Damien darted a questioning glance at him. Against the background of the slowly brightening sky with its myriad of glittering stars the Neocount's delicate features were smooth ivory, flawless and ethereal, and his mesmerizing, unearthly eyes flashed like diamonds, more dazzling than any heavenly body he had ever seen. Enthralled by those molten pools of silver, he at long last remembered the rest of the famous poem, and everything fell into place.

“He walks in beauty like the night, Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that’s best of dark and bright, Meet in his aspect and his eyes.”

The former priest didn’t even realize that he had spoken aloud until he saw Gerald blinking in stunned disbelief. The usually so impenetrable numarble mask which had once been a mortal man's face softened to a mien of affection and yearning Vryce hadn't thought his undead ally being capable of in his wildest dreams. At the very next moment, slender fingers relinquished their hold on his upper arm and caressed his cheek, the touch as light as a feather, and he forgot how to breathe.

The last barriers sheltering him from the true reason for his despair crumbling into dust, Damien wrapped his arms around the Hunter and pulled him into a tight embrace, clinging to the tall, lean body like a man drowning in a veritable ocean of desire. Then cold lips met his own, tasting of the last drops of Tarrant's iron ration and the frigid, utterly silent darkness preceding a winter dawn, but being yet so soft and yielding that he abandoned himself to the kiss without hesitation.

After a few moments, the Lord of the Forest stepped back and regarded him pensively, the usual glacial cold in his eyes thawed by all too human emotions Damien had no problems deciphering for once. “The poet voiced his admiration for a beautiful woman, not for a man, Vryce," he whispered. "But I would suggest we discussed your lack of familiarity with Lord Byron’s poetry in a more sheltered surrounding. Dawn is near, and I’d rather not progress from the flames of passion to a more literal fiery inferno.”

Gerald's face was utterly calm and serene again as if nothing out of the ordinary had come to pass between them. But the slight hitch in his voice told the warrior knight everything he had to know. Smiling, he followed his companion to the valley of Shaitan and their destiny.

 


End file.
